Fine Spirits [Spirits 02] (9 page)

      
Billy had never thanked me and never would, because of his feelings about my spiritualist business. That morning, I tried not to get indignant at him for it. Didn't work. Never did. As far as I was concerned, Billy was pigheaded and unreasonable about my job. Even if he was a wounded war hero, he didn't have to be so darned illogical.

      
He was wrong when he said what I did was wicked. Through my work I helped people cope with their grief. Many's the woman who's thanked me after a séance during which I'd told her that her son or husband or cousin or lover was at peace on the other side of life and still loved those he'd left behind. I don't consider easing people's heartaches wicked. I consider it pretty darned nice.

      
Billy would never admit that he thought so, too. To my credit, I didn't allow my frustration to show that morning.

      
I took my toast over to the table and buttered it. “Are there any oranges already picked?” We had a navel orange tree right next to the back steps that produced oranges in the fall. Another orange tree closer to the back end of our yard, this one a Valencia, produced oranges in the springtime. Therefore, we had fresh oranges almost all year round: another splendid reason to live in Pasadena.

      
“Sorry, sweetheart. I ate the last one.” Billy was honestly rueful that I'd have to go outdoors and pick an orange if I wanted one.

      
“That's okay.” I glanced at the window again and decided I was sorry, too. Still raining. I decided I could live without an orange for breakfast. “Mrs. Bissel's sending her car to pick me up today, so I won't have to get soaked walking to the red car line.”

      
“Glad to hear it,” said Pa. “I was afraid I'd have to stand in the rain and crank the Model T for you.” He chuckled again.

      
Billy didn't. As usual. “At least you won't have to drive in the rain,” he said, sounding as if he would have liked to scold me for going out in the rain but didn't dare do so in front of Pa.

      
“Right.” To make up for Billy's lack of enthusiasm, I added a brightness to the word that I didn't feel. “She's got the best dogs, Billy. You'd love them.”

      
“Hmmm,” said Billy.

      
“What kind are they?” asked Pa.

      
“Dachshunds.”

      
“Aha! Little sausage dogs, eh? I'll bet they're cunning.”

      
Have I mentioned that Pa was the greatest guy in the world? Well, he was. He knew exactly what ailed Billy. He also knew what Billy put me through every day as I tried to earn our bread, but he never once talked about our problems. He only tried to smooth over the bumps when they occurred.

      
“They are,” I said around a mouthful of toast. “They're the most precious puppies I've ever seen.”

      
I almost added that I was going to ask Mrs. Bissel to give me one in payment if I succeeded in getting whatever was living in her basement to move out, but I caught myself before I could blurt it out. I wanted to surprise Billy. I didn't think even Billy could resist the charm of a dachshund puppy--although who knew? Billy was an expert at resisting those who tried to help him.

      
Still and all, and as discouraged as I'd been in recent days, not all my faith in miracles had died yet. And although it was a big task to ask of a tiny puppy, I prayed a puppy could help us out. We sure needed something.

      
A knock came at our door, and I got up to answer it. Henry, Mrs. Bissel's chauffeur, stood on the porch, holding a big black umbrella. “Put the umbrella on the porch and come on in and have a cup of something, Henry. I'm just finishing breakfast.”

      
“Thank you, Miss Daisy.”

      
Henry Pettigrew, as brown and wrinkled as a walnut, was a nice fellow and I liked him a lot. He and Pa knew each other from the days when Pa used to be a chauffeur for rich moving-picture people. Henry and his wife and two children lived in an apartment off Mrs. Bissel's garage. Mrs. Pettigrew was a very good seamstress, and lots of ladies in Altadena and Pasadena availed themselves of her talents.

      
As I ran to get my coat and hat, Pa poured Henry a cup of coffee and made him sit down and warm up. I was glad of it, because Billy seldom said nasty things about my work when non-family members were present. I figured the more the merrier, at least for me.

      
It didn't take me long to complete my toilette. Henry, good employee that he was, jumped to attention as soon as I walked into the kitchen. “You sure look pretty today, Miss Daisy. You're a sight prettier than the weather.”

      
“I think so, too,” said my Billy, not caring to be upstaged by a chauffeur, I guess, because he didn't usually compliment me more than once per day.

      
“Thanks, Henry. And you, too, Billy.”

      
I bent down and kissed Billy on his forehead, not deeming it appropriate to demonstrate too much affection in front of others. Not for me the loose morals running rampant among the young people of the nation in those days.

      
Even if I'd felt like being loose, which I didn't, I wouldn't allow myself to be because it might hurt my business. Working as a spiritualist medium was tricky enough, even for a proper, moral girl who sang in the church choir. If people thought I was one of the free-and-easy girls everyone deplored back then, my goose would have been cooked.

      
“When will you be home?”

      
Billy's question came out sounding tight and not altogether pleasant, and my heart sank into my sensible, moderately low-heeled shoes. If his mood didn't improve before I came home, I'd be in for it tonight. I should have been used to it, but I wasn't.

      
“As soon as I can be. It probably won't take me long.” Primarily because I didn't have the faintest idea what to do about Mrs. Bissel's problem. Which set me to thinking, as I should have done the night before.

      
I suppose I could bolt the door leading from the basement to the out of doors in order to trap whoever was living down there inside. Then I could get rid of it myself or call on the local law enforcement people to do it for me.

      
No. That wasn't any good because it would clue Mrs. Bissel in to the fact that it wasn't a creature from the nether world hanging out in her basement, but a living entity. I wasn't sure she'd pay me even in money, much less in dachshunds, if she knew the truth--whatever the truth was. Heck, I didn't know for sure there was anything at all down there, much less a human being.

      
Henry helped me into the back seat of the Daimler, holding the umbrella over my head the whole time, and I felt kind of special. Maybe it's not so bad being from the working classes, because we appreciate stuff like being driven around in a Daimler more than people who are accustomed to such luxuries.

      
The only problem with the arrangement was that it was more difficult to chat with Henry when he sat up front and I sat in the back. That being the case, and since I still felt gloomy and depressed, I didn't try to talk to him, but stared out the window at the rain.

      
It's a funny thing about our weather. Sometimes it didn't rain for months on end. At other times it would rain so hard, houses slid down hillsides. You'd never catch me building a house on a hill in Southern California, even if I could afford to.

      
The downpour must have started some time during the night, because already the streets ran with water. Henry had to drive in the middle of Colorado Street in order to keep us from getting waterlogged by the huge puddles that had built up next to the curbs and made small lakes in the street. Luckily, all of Pasadena's main streets had been paved. When Henry turned north onto Lake Avenue, the street looked like a river running downhill. I began to wonder if we'd make it to Mrs. Bissel's house even in the Daimler, which was a darned good machine.

      
But Henry knew what he was doing, and although it took a good deal longer to drive from our house to Mrs. Bissel's place than it would have done had the weather been sunny, eventually we made it. After turning right from Lake onto Foothill Boulevard, Henry drove north up Maiden Lane, which was running with mud at the time, turned left into the circular driveway in the back of the house, and pulled up next to Mrs. Bissel's flagstone patio.

      
I'd been to her house during the summertime when she'd entertained guests back there, and I loved it. She had a shrub called a daphne that had glossy green leaves and pearly white blossoms that smelled so wonderful, I could shut my eyes and fancy I'd died and gone to heaven.

      
On that ghastly autumn day the daphne was dripping and dreary like everything else, and nothing smelled like anything but mud. Even Mrs. Bissel's monkey-puzzle tree looked as if it had been dunked upside down in a bucket of water. It drooped as if it had caught cold in the lousy weather and ought to be lying down and resting with a hot-water bottle on its head and its roots resting on a footstool.

      
Henry ran from his door to mine, the umbrella held high, and opened my door. I thanked him for it, and he walked me to the back door, still holding the umbrella over my head and his. I thanked him for
that
, too. It's kind of nice to be treated as if you were worth taking care of once in a while.

      
Approximately a thousand dachshunds, all barking hysterically, greeted me as I walked into the sun porch off the patio. Henry laughed as he shook out the umbrella. Mrs. Bissel was close on the dogs' heels, holding out her hands in greeting, and hollering at her dogs to shut up. They didn't, of course.

 

      
 

Chapter Five
 

      
It took approximately twenty minutes for the dogs to calm down enough for Mrs. Bissel and me to hold a conversation.

      
“It's because they've been cooped up all day,” said she. “The rain, don't you know. Their little legs are so short, I'm afraid that if I let them go outdoors, they'll just float away downstream and end up in San Marino.”

      
I wouldn't mind ending up in San Marino. It was a great place, full of mansions and rich people, including Harold Kincaid. I didn't mention my thoughts, although I must admit that the mental image of a bunch of little sausage-shaped hound dogs floating downhill was an amusing one. In fact, I almost laughed, which was an improvement over the glumness that had been my companion from my house to Mrs. Bissel's.

      
“Come into the breakfast room and have a cup of tea to warm you up, Daisy. There's plenty of time to work on the spirit belowstairs. I need to tell you what happened last night.”

      
I perked up a tiny bit more. “Something happened last night? Something out of the ordinary?”

      
“Yes.” Mrs. Bissel's voice had sunk to a whisper. “Oh, Daisy, I do
so
hope you can help us. Whatever's down there is becoming more bold.”

      
“My goodness.” Rats. This sounded bad. If there was anything I didn't need, it was a bold spirit--or criminal or lunatic or mountain lion. “What did it do?”

      
She drew her chair closer to mine and leaned toward me. Mrs. Cummings must have been warned to bring tea and cakes as soon as I arrived, because that's what she did.

      
“Good morning, Mrs. Cummings,” I said politely.

      
“Is it?” Mrs. Cummings replied, which I thought was odd.

      
“Oh, Daisy, you just can't imagine how frightened we all are!” exclaimed Mrs. Bissel.

      
“That's the God's own truth,” affirmed Mrs. Cummings.

      
Golly, this didn't sound good at all. In fact, it sounded like a job for someone other than a phony spiritualist. I'd never say so. “What happened?” I asked again.

      
“Whatever's down there made something crash.”

      
I glanced from Mrs. Bissel, who'd made this pronouncement in a voice that would have done the spirit belowstairs proud, to Mrs. Cummings, who nodded her head and looked grim. “Um . . . It made something crash? What did it make crash? You mean, like a glass or something?”

      
“That's just it,” Mrs. Bissel said in a harsh whisper. “We don't
know
!”

      
Mrs. Cummings nodded some more.

      
“Ah . . .” Crumb, what did this mean? I wasn't even sure what they were talking about. “Do you mean you heard a noise like that of breaking glass? And it came from the basement?”

      
“It came from the basement, all right. It was probably a mirror,” said Mrs. Cummings gloomily. Her aspect went well with the horrible weather. “I understand them spirits and so forth don't like mirrors.”

      
“Ah. Of course. A mirror.”

      
Mrs. Bissel nodded and looked thoughtful, as if she were considering Mrs. Cummings' comment and agreeing with it. “Yes. It might have been a mirror smashing.”

      
“Are there very many mirrors down there?” I asked, just curious as to how Mrs. Bissel's resident spirit might have gotten its transparent hands on a looking glass. Most basements of my acquaintance weren't heavily endowed with mirrors.

      
“I don't know of any,” admitted Mrs. Bissel.

      
She peered questioningly up at Mrs. Cummings, who shook her head. “I never seen one down there.”

      
I made the brilliant deduction that the paucity of mirrors belowstairs let mirrors out as the crashing device. Whoever lived there probably broke a glass by accident. “Did you investigate this morning, to see if there were shards of glass or anything like that left on the floor?”